Thanks to a new bill in Congress, one of America’s greatest wild places -- the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska -- might become permanently protected as a wilderness area.

Throughout 2014, as we commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act, we have said the most apt celebration of the landmark law would be for Congress to work with renewed determination to conserve our most special landscapes—including those we have worked for years to protect.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee passed several pieces of locally-supported legislation on Nov. 13 that would protect irreplaceable wild landscapes, signaling hope for the current “lame duck” session of Congress.

The Wilderness Act celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on Sept. 3, 1964, the Wilderness Act created our National Wilderness Preservation System and a means by which Americans can protect wilderness.

Barely one month removed from the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act’s signing, it bears repeating that 1964, though momentous, was just the beginning of the movement to save our nation’s wildest places Hundreds of wilderness areas have been protected in the years since, from coa